A Mistress, Nymphet, Daughter, or Victim?

Today in class, one question posed in the PowerPoint concerning Coetzee's Disgrace was- What does David Lurie desire? 

After reading the first half of the novel, my impression is that Lurie is influenced by prejudices about the feminine. Spurred by an innate distaste for the dumpy Bev Shaw, he admits, "He does not like women who make no effort to be attractive. It is a resistance he has had to Lucy's friends before. Nothing to be proud of: a prejudice that has settled in his mind, settled down" (72). To him, everything in life is about power dynamics, and physical beauty is a form of power. He examines his grown daughter Lucy's body and is displeased that she is in love with Helen, a woman he doesn't find physically beautiful. He doesn't even like imagining Lucy and Helen having an adult relationship. Instead he guesses that "Perhaps they sleep together merely as children do, cuddling, touching, giggling, reliving girlhood - sisters more than lovers. Sharing a bed, sharing a bathtub, baking gingerbread cookies, trying on each other's clothes. Sapphic love: an excuse for putting on weight" (86). Because Lucy's attraction for Helen is unconventional- it's both a lesbian relationship, and Helen isn't physically attractive in an obvious way, does this mean there is no mature intimacy? Hopefully Lurie's imagination is merely stinted by the fact that this is his daughter, a child in his eyes. 

So, if Lurie has compassion for his daughter and her safety, why does he engage in an inappropriate relationship with the youthful Melanie Isaacs? I believe that Coetzee strategically organizes her prose here. Lurie begins to seduce Melanie immediately after he is rejected by Soraya. Soraya represents an exotic fantasy. He wields ultimate power over a woman who only exists in a room, once a week, to pleasure him. It's once he sees her in the real world with two children that she begins to lose her appeal. He is also jealous of her supposed husband. He reflects:

"He ought to give up, retire from the game. At what age, he wonders, did Origen castrate himself? Not the most graceful of solutions, but then aging is not a graceful business. A clearing of the decks, at least, so that one can turn one's mind to the proper business of the old: preparing to die" (9). 

Ultimately, he desires two things: to wield sexual power to feel alive and in control despite his inability to halt death and to participate in the exotic, the romanticized. He finds his dream embodied in the beautifully frail, undergraduate student Melanie Isaacs. 

Melanie is repeatedly described as child-like. "In the one word ["Hello?"] he hears all her uncertainty. Too young" (18). "A child! he thinks: No more than a child! What am I doing? Yet his heart lurches with desire " (20). "He makes up a bed for her in his daughter's old room, kisses her good night, leaves her to herself" (26). The examples of her child-like physique, demeanor, and his fatherly attitude towards her are endless. So, do we jump to assume that Lurie is the latest Humbert Humbert, preying on nymphets? No- Melanie is consistently described as child-like, but she is not Nabokov's prepubescent Lolita. Lurie is not a pedophile, just chauvinistic and power hungry; it is easiest for him to achieve sexual, intellectual, and emotional dominance by pursuing someone who feels pressured by the age difference and his presence as her professor. 

The second reason for Lurie's desire comes from his infatuation with the romanticized. He literally teaches a Romantics course. He lectures to his students, "It may be in your better interest to throw a veil over the gaze, so as to keep her alive in her archetypal, goddesslike form" (22). What is more perfect and idealized than the youthful woman? He is constantly envisioning Melanie's perfect breasts and body. He romanticizes what is practically rape by comparing it to art: "Her tights and panties lie in a tangle on the floor; his trousers are around his ankles. After the storm, he thinks: straight out of George Grosz" (19). Maybe it is this artful vision that prevents him from realizing the seriousness of his actions.

More disgusting than a hunger for power that knows no bounds and a purely physical approach to women, is Lurie's refusal to reform. He doesn't see his pursuit of Melanie as rape, and he will not accept the school's attempts to counsel him in a fashion that imitates the South African, post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "'No,' he says. 'I was enriched by the experience'" (56). Melanie is distressed and thinning. He is told she took sleeping pills. She wants to drop out of school. But, Lurie will not admit that he was wrong. He sees himself as an instinctive dog who shouldn't be punished for his carnal cravings (90), and according to this logic, Melanie is just another bitch.